UK: Securing £500m of government grant funding to pay for major projects in 2024-25 is critical for the future of the London Underground, according to Transport for London Chief Capital Officer Stuart Harvey.
Speaking in Germany when the first of 94 new Piccadilly Line trains was shown to the press, Harvey said decisions on funding for the resignalling of the Piccadilly Line and resignalling and fleet renewal on the Bakerloo Line are needed.
‘The most important thing now is that we are making the case to government for the vital long-term capital investment we need to continue with improvements like this, which support jobs and economic growth’, he said.
‘We want to follow the introduction of these new trains on the Piccadilly Line by doing the same on the Bakerloo Line, replacing the 51-year-old trains that it currently operates, and by continuing to modernise our fleets and signalling to make sure they remain safe and reliable. But such vital improvements will not be possible without continued capital investment from the government from April 2024.’
Reflecting on the fact that the Bakerloo Line trains are even older than the Piccadilly Line stock which is being replaced, Harvey pointed out that keeping 51-year old trains running with an equally old signalling system is seeing TfL incurring costs just to keep ageing assets functioning day-to-day.
‘You end up spending a lot of money on keeping the old trains going, it’s going to be an uphill struggle to continue to maintain them and our argument is it’s much better to invest in new trains because you get the reliability improvements and we get a much better proposition for our customers; we end up putting that money to much better effect.
‘The trains have reached the stage where they’re not economic to keep going; without the funding we have an uphill struggle to keep them going. They’ll always be safe, we’ll do our best with reliability, but it will be a challenge’, Harvey said.
Were funding to be agreed to underwrite a communications-based signalling system for the Piccadilly Line, an enhanced service would require more trainsets. TfL has an option to order a further 18 Piccadilly Line trains from Siemens Mobility, which would also build new trains for the Bakerloo Line, should an order be placed.
However, TfL would need to place an order by 2026 if the new Bakerloo Line trains are to be built in Goole. It would also need to have procurement underway for a new depot and the resignalling in progress by then. Both TfL and Siemens agree that the price for the Bakerloo fleet could be higher than that agreed for the Piccadilly fleet, with Sambit Banerjee, Joint CEO for Siemens Mobility UK, noting that the Covid pandemic and the Russian war against Ukraine have hit the supply chain. ‘We will work together to produce the most cost-efficient train for Londoners’, he said.
Asked whether a loan from the government would be a satisfactory option if a grant were not available, Harvey said ‘we need the money; a loan isn’t something that we can deal with. We already have a large amount of debt, for good reason historically. We are increasing our surplus every year through relentless work on our operating costs and through capital efficiency, but we clearly cannot fund new signalling and rolling stock out of the fare box. So we need a grant.’
Harvey said TfL is ‘currently working through our contingency plan for if we don’t secure the £500m, or all of it’. It is ‘too early to say what that looks like, there are competing needs from renewals though other projects we’ve got underway now that are already important’, he added.
Asked if this could even impact on the 94 Piccadilly Line trains already on order, he said ‘it’s not impossible, it’s too early to say. £500m is a large sum of money, it’s 25% of our investment and we do need it to complete the Piccadilly Line trains. We’ve got a contractual commitment and we’re doing everything we can to continue with that, but at the end of the day it’s safety and reliability that comes first to our customers and to London. Hopefully it won’t come to having to deal with a £500m shortfall.’
